Put a Ring On it

Well, this is something we never thought of doing with our old books (of course, all we do with our old books is look at them lovingly and hope they are never, ever defaced in any way). Jeremy May, a London-based artist, makes “literary jewels” by cutting a cross-section from a book, laminating each of the pages together (so that the object has hundreds of layers), shaping them into a ring or a bracelet or a necklace, and adding a glossy finish. Each piece is sold in the hollowed-out space in the book it was cut from:

This one is from Carl Heinrich Stratz’s “Die Schönheit des weiblichen Körpers” (“The beauty of the Female body”), which is essentially a gynecological text.

This is from “Robinson Crusoe.”

And this one is from “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

Some of the pieces on May’s Web site, Littlefly.com, are available for purchase, but many are bespoke. If you’d like May to craft a bobble from your favorite (or least favorite) book, you can send him an e-mail of inquiry.